


Not Just Ships That Pass in the Night

by Jonaira



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Action/Adventure, Ambushes and Sneak Attacks, Army, Awesome Peggy Carter, Blizzards & Snowstorms, Can this get any fluffier, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Cold Weather, Companionable Snark, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Smut, Foreplay, Ghosts, Hiking, Humor, Kissing, Mission Fic, Missions Gone Wrong, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Rescue Missions, Sassy Bucky Barnes, Sassy Steve Rogers, Serious Injuries, Sharing Body Heat, Snark, Snowed In, Steggy Secret Santa, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-27 06:51:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17157278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jonaira/pseuds/Jonaira
Summary: Peggy sighed. "Just g-go to sleep, S-steve.""I can't, alright ? I keep hearing your teeth chatter and your toes squeal for fear of dropping off with frostbite""Oh I'm sorry f-fh-for f-f-freezing my backside off," she snarked."Then at least let me give you the rug !" he snapped back, getting to his feet and lifting the old carpet off the floor, only for Peggy to hiss, "You are not putting that t-th-thing anywhere near my p-person, it's got enough d-dust to plant a whole g-garden in!"Written for @fiercyy for the Steggy Secret Santa exchange 2018 !In which Howard meddles, there is a blizzard, and cold toes are sad toes.Starring Peggy Carter, stealth cuddle bug and Steve Rogers, the swiss army knife of all space heaters.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fiercest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fiercest/gifts).



> So I might have gone a tad overboard😅 To the extent that I had 5200+ words of back story written out for you and awaiting editing even before the Steggy bit, with more still on its way 🙈  
> But I'd wanted to give this to you on the 25th itself, so here's the first part and will have the rest up soon!  
> Merry Christmas Fiercyy, and hope you enjoy this !

She hadn't stopped shivering even under the thick quilt, her pale face poking out from under rough fabric almost glowing in the dark. It was that chattering of her teeth that was keeping him awake.

"I could go look for more linen," Steve whispered, sitting up and looking over the edge of the bed. After the serum, Steve's relationship with the cold had gotten much more interesting. He felt it, alright, but it never bothered him. So he'd curled up on the floor beside the single bed on a dusty rug, with his jacket balled up for a pillow, giving his sheet to Bucky, who had definitely been the needier party at that point.

"I already ch-ch-checked. No m-more linen." She got out through clenched teeth.

Steve swallowed, the click of his throat loud in the silence.

"It's kinda dusty, but maybe you could take the rug ?" He asked.

Steve swore he could hear her rolling her eyes.

"You know Steven, if I d-d-didn't know you better, I'd s-say you had a martyr complex."

He really had no answer to that.

After a few minutes of silence broken only by the periodic clatter of her teeth, Steve shifted so that he sat up resting against the bed, watching the icicles creeps across the window pane.

Peggy sighed. "Just g-go to sleep, S-steve."

"I can't, alright ? I keep hearing your teeth chatter and your toes squeal for fear of frostbite"

"Oh I'm sorry f-fh-for f-f-freezing my backside off," she snarked.

"Then at least let me give you the rug !" he snapped back, getting to his feet and lifting the old carpet off the floor, only for Peggy to hiss, "You are not putting that t-th-thing anywhere near my p-person, it's got enough d-dust to plant a whole g-garden in! "

There was silence again, only broken by a new wave of decidedly angry sounding clattering of her teeth. Steve sat back down in defeat.

"Just the jacket," he offered meekly just as Peggy said, "I have a p-plan." and sat up herself.

"Peggy ?"

"Get into bed with me."

"That's not a very good plan.”

"S-steven. Under the c-covers, _now_." It's difficult not to respond to the command in her voice.

"That would be crossing a line." He closed his eyes.

"You're an artist, j-j-just draw another."

"I think that's the liquor talking Peggy," he said mildly, trying to keep his voice from shaking.

"D-don't you dare call me d-d-drunk, Steven Rogers."

"Peggy, this would be extremely unprofessional."

"Well what if I don't give a frozen rat's arse about professional," she muttered, too softly for her to have intended for him to hear it.

He took a deep breath and then opened up his jacket to spread over the Peggy shaped lump under the single thin towel they'd managed to find. Her feet stuck out at the end, still clad in her boots to keep the cold at bay. Despite her earlier protests, she clutched it tighter around her.

Steve let his head fall back against the mattress as he sat against the bed. He could feel her shivering through the mattress. After a few minutes, cold fingers combed through his hair, gently tugging on strands. Almost involuntarily, he leaned further back, turning his head so she could reach the other side. The last time somebody had stroked his hair had been while he’d fallen asleep with his head on his mother’s hospital bed when he’d been eighteen.

He felt her shuffle closer on the mattress, nails lightly dragging against his scalp. He felt like he was floating away.

And then, ever so slowly, her fingers moved out from his to trace over the shell of his ear.

Steve's breath caught in his throat.

Her fingertips had warmed up a bit. That didn't stop them from raising goosebumps on the skin of his neck as they moved to trace over his eyes, over his nose. Over his lips.

Her thumb lingered at the corner of his mouth, nail catching on the chapped skin of his lips.

He couldn't hear the steady sound of her breathing anymore.

Then, slow as dripping treacle, and just as sweet, she pushed her thumb against his lower lip, and Steve feeling like he was stepping off a cliff, raked his teeth along the top of her finger.

"Steve." He heard the click of her throat as she swallowed. "Please."

He unclenched his hand from where it had been resting on his leg and gently pulled her fingers away from his face, squeezing to take away the sting.

One last time, he'd try. He'd let his self-restraint crumble if this didn’t work, but not before he tried to do what all good sense was telling him to just once more.

"There's no coming back from wherever this leads, Peggy" he whispered into the dark.

"Then I'd rather go nowhere with you than all the way with anybody else," she whispered back, sounding just as wonderfully stubborn as always, and that was his undoing.

He was up on the narrow mattress and lifting the joke of a towel masquerading as a sheet even while she shuffled over to right against the wall to give him space. Except the wall was uncomfortably cold, and Steve found himself with an armful of cuddly, shivering intelligence agent trying to burrow right into his chest.

"Give a guy some warning," he chuckled.

"Mmph," she told him, too busy kicking off her boots and dragging his arm tighter around her.

"You know, I wouldn't have thought we'd have fit up here," he tells her grinning at the way she'd shoved her cold fingers between his ribs and the lumpy mattress.

Her breath was warm against his neck as she murmured, "I think we've known Howard Stark long enough to figure that Physics bows to whoever wields the most whimsy at a given time."

"Ugh, don't even mention Stark. It's his stupid device that got us into this whole mess." Steve said darkly.

"Agreed," Peggy told him lightly. "Although I wouldn't call this a mess exactly," she whispered, lips cool on the underside of his jaw. Steve gulped, feeling her smile against his neck as she felt his Adams apple bob.

He doesn't get cold anymore, sure, but there's no limit to the heat he can feel, and right now, his cheeks feel like they're on fire.

Which is nothing compared to what he felt next when her fingers found their way under his shirt, playing with the waistband of his trousers.

"Keep that up and I guarantee you there will be," he tells her, hoping he didn't sound as strangled to her as he did to himself.

And then Peggy was laughing huskily, hands pulling away from the danger zone to cradle either side of his face gently.

"Let's live on the edge then, shall we," she breathed, and then her mouth is soft over his, dry lips catching on his own.

Steve has kissed all of two girls before Peggy. One was a lets-not-do-this-again-goodnight peck by some girl Bucky had tried to set him up with years ago, and the other a non-mutual flailing on his part with Pvt. Lorraine.

So he had no idea what to do when her tongue ran along his lower lip, and her teeth tugged insistently.

He didn't get breathless anymore, could do a 3 mile run up a hill without breaking a sweat, but he knew he was going to start panting any moment now.

As if sensing how close he was to wound too tight, Peggy pulled away.

"I think," she murmured, humour saturating her tone,"somebody's forgetting the point of this endeavor."

"Remind me again, would you," Steve gasped as she kitten-licked a spot on his neck just above his pulse, tasting him before she turned it into a sharp nip of teeth, chapped lips pulling at the soft skin there.

Steve was almost unbearably hard by now, and he knew she could probably feel him but was having too good a time driving him crazy.

"It was your job to get me warm, Rogers, but looks like you're the one hot under the collar right now," she kissed him again, deeper this time, tongue running against the back of his teeth. He could taste the brandy lingering from the drinks they'd had right before turning in. Remembers how her eyes had grown sparklier and her laugh louder as the night had aged.

"Let me help you out," she pulled away to kiss the tip of his nose. “Bare skin to skin usually does the trick, but we'll make do," she’d said to him, poker faced. And then she's pulling her jacket off her and tugging it over them in addition to his, but not before all but pushing her chest into his face as she arched her back to get it off. Steve holds his breath, lips an inch from one of the twin swells of her bosom.

And then, Steve thought, _Screw it, she's had her fun_ , and curled his arm tighter around her, pushing his face gently against the valley of her breasts through the thick material of her shirt.

Peggy goes absolutely still where she's leaning up above him on her elbow. _That's right,_ he thinks. _My turn,_ as he mouthed at the swell of her breast, feeling the slight bump of her taut nipple even through the double layers of her shirt and brassiere.

"Steve," her voice broke. "It's ungentlemanly to tease". Her voice was coming out through clenched teeth.

He pushed her down gently, flipping their positions and coming up on one arm to start unbuttoning her shirt.

"Ain’t nothing gentlemanly about about what I’m planning on doing. Just following orders ma’am," he told her, voice muffled with his mouth against the sensible cotton of her bra.

He'd opened up only how much he needed of her shirt, but the cold air still raised gooseflesh over the tops of her breasts, and he tugged at her nipple with his teeth through the cloth.

Her fingers are tangled in his hair, one hand braced against his chest and then her leg is nudging his apart, husky voice whispering to spread his legs for her, so she could push one slender calf between his, the heat of it against his own even through his pants sending sparks up his spine that makes him need to stop what he's doing. Stop, and drop his head under her chin, groaning with the way all her squirming was nudging him just right through his uncomfortably tight pants.

Sensing weakness, Peggy seized the upper hand again.

"Need to get our blood running to keep the cold away. Could you think of any way ?" She said lightly, voice breathy in a way Steve had never found attractive at all when he'd heard it on one of Bucky's blue films, but which had him blinking back stars right now.

"You're gonna tell me anyway, aren't you" He kissed the hollow of her neck, fingers brushing her hair away from her collarbones.

"Orgasms."

If he'd heard that even five minutes ago, he'd have probably ruined his shorts. As it stood, Steve was determined to win this thing they'd started, so he gritted his teeth, flicked her nipple drawing out a gasp from her, and looked her dead in the eye and said, "Start the timer, ma'am."

He takes only a second to savor the shocked look on her face before he's moving to be between the legs. His heart was pounding, and Steve had no idea how he was supposed to do this, but he'd not give up without a jolly good try. He’s hoping that instinct and enthusiasm make up for expertise.

Steve pulled both of their jackets over her, tucking them just under her chin before he went to work opening the button of her pants and pressing his face against her belly, nosing his way down to the cotton of her underwear. The scent of her hits his nose, sharp and clean as he mouthed at her through the cotton.

Peggy's legs have gone around his shoulders, spread wide to accommodate them, and she'd pushed herself up on her elbows to see him, mouth slightly open and hair a mess. Her shirt gaped open, breasts spilling over the tops of her bra and he needs to get his mouth on her _right now_ or he'll explode.

He's just about pulling the elastic down, heart stuttering in his chest and mouth dry when she scrambled back and away.

Steve looked up at her, pulling off her completely, alarm bells blaring in his head at what he'd done wrong. He's about to ask, except Peggy was getting up, onto her knees and then crawling the couple of feet towards him, shirt flapping open almost obscenely, pants pulling lower down her hips with their front wide open.

She's seized him by his collar and kissed the breath out of him before he can ask, both of them sitting on their knees face to face , before she pulled him down, still kissing him so they're on their sides. Always the pragmatist, she tugged the towel and jackets back onto them. Peggy took his hand then, shivering as his warm palm trailed down her stomach and guides it to cup her over her underwear.

"Want your fingers," she whispered to him.

***

He was driving her absolutely insane. He’d made something of a habit of it, unfortunately. All big earnest eyes, golden hair a mess, falling all over the place out of its usually neat style. It was fitting, she thought, that he no longer looked like the good, respectable man he usually was, given how much of a devil she'd just found out he could be.

Lord knows she'd wanted his mouth on her. It's all she's been able to think about ever since the alcohol earlier that night had loosened something that had been knotted too tight in her these last few weeks. But fact was that this was not somewhere where safety could be taken for granted, the rest of the Howling Commandos were probably just as awake and freezing as she was around the house, and she'd rather not be caught with her pants down, to put it crudely.

But _god,_ Steve's hands were in a league of their own. She'd thought them beautiful, long fingered and deft before Dr. Erskine's procedure. A thinker's hands. Artistic, idealistic. She'd been delighted when they'd remained the same after he'd stepped out taller than her and twice as wide as he'd been before.

And now's she's going to show him how to take her apart with those hands of his, because Steve, bless him, had ducked his head, flushing even darker than his already pink cheeks should've allowed, and told her that she'd need to take the lead on this one.

And maybe something in her had loosened because she had allowed it to, after all Agent Carter too needed to rest, but nobody woke up Peggy like Steve did.

And she felt privileged in turn, that Captain America dropped the shield and just became Steve Rogers with her, that she could bring out that part of the incredible man beside her right now.

The only other person she'd known to be able to do that was James Barnes. Who'd been flushed and rosy-cheeked that evening as the Howlies and her had knocked back drinks. And Peggy had watched the way Steve's fingers had flexed by his side, sure that Steve desperately wanted a pencil and a scrap of paper to sketch him the way he'd looked right then, freeze that moment with all the Howlies in it long after memory wouldn't serve.

Peggy had called Steve away then to help get more coal from the cellar, and maybe Bucky wasn't as drunk as he'd seemed to be because his eyes had immediately tracked them as they had moved away from the others.

There was a bond between them, and to try and classify it was difficult and mostly futile, but it shone true and undoubtedly powerful. Peggy had seen war, she'd seen the fraternity that sprung up between men in foxholes that had a strength of its own, but this was something entirely different.

Sometimes, she thinks she doesn't stand a chance with Steve, not with James Barnes around. But Peggy believed in trying, and maybe this would hurt later if she lost him, but she wouldn't throw away this time, this chance with him for fear of what might happen.

"Hey. Hey, Peggy, sweetheart." He'd caught her chin gently and ducked his head to look at her. "You still with me ?" He'd never called her that before. Then again, there never had been occasion to, she supposed.

Her hand was still wrapped loosely around his, still near her unbuttoned trousers. He pulled his hand out of hers and gently squeezed it, interlacing their fingers and pulling her arm around his waist.

"We don't have to do this," he told her, gently stroking her cheek with the back of his knuckles. "I mean, _sure_ , this is the most _fun_ way to get you warm, but I'm nothing if not creative," he waggled his eyebrows at her, and Peggy thinks she might be a little in love with this man.

 _Toss it,_ she thought. She wants all of him, wants whatever she can have. He takes that moment to kiss her, soft, moving to the corner of her mouth, her eyelid, her forehead. "Don't think, Pegs. Just, _be_. You're the fiercest, smartest, most beautiful thing on two legs I've ever met, but if something's worrying you, let's talk," he said, pulling away, sincerity etched in every line of his beautiful face.

Peggy is a woman of the army and she knows the value of her position. She commands respect, she's earned it and she's fought every step of the way for it. She's learnt a thing or two about fighting her way to the top, and fighting to stay there. And here was this man who made her drop all her armour, throw down her weapons and lay herself bare to him.

She pulled him to her mouth.

"I’m through talking. Less tell, more show."

***

Steve could hear a mouse scurry through the silent house.  
Maybe it was the same one Bucky had shot at earlier, which was why one of Howard’s automatic mistletoes was embedded in the ceiling above them.

Peggy curled tighter against him in her sleep and he pulled her closer, adjusting the jackets around her. They’d definitely kissed under the mistletoe, amongst many other things, if not because of the mistletoe.

Maybe, just maybe, he thought as sleep found him, when they got back to base, Steve wouldn’t help Bucky kill Howard after all, now much more in favor of sitting back and merely cheering him on.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All stories have a beginning. And every beginning has a moron. Or atleast the one they all like to call a moron.

"I'm going to kill Howard Stark. Remind me, would'ja, Steve. Shoot Howard Stark with his own damn invention right up…" Bucky trailed off, muttering darkly.  
The effect was sort of ruined by his dripping nose, nasal voice and the general fact that he was huddled up on his side under a flowery, crocheted, salmon pink bed cover. He sneezed pitifully, and Peggy handed him a scrap of lace table cloth, into which he snuffled his thanks.  
  
***

_19 hrs earlier._

  
By the law of gravity, shit would roll downhill.

  
And Steve believed he’d jumped straight to the bottom of the slope the moment he’d allowed Stark to contribute to what was supposed to be a straightforward, short mission.

  
“Trust me, it'll work perfectly ! You'll know exactly what the Hydra mooks are saying way over the usual radio frequency range we currently have, and it breaks encryption while at it too !" Howard had beamed and shoved the boxy, wiry contraption about the size of a typewriter into Steve's hands. Steve tried shoving it back. That didn't work.  
"It's a pretty straightforward mission, Stark. I don't think we'll need this. Plus, I'd rather not be the guinea pig for this invention of yours in an active mission, even if it's only supposed to be a short recon one." Steve had said, putting the thing down when Howard refused to take it back, scratching the back of his head.  
"Cap. _Steve_. My friend who jumps out of airplanes without a parachute. Quite honestly, you're the only guinea pig I have to field test this baby." Howard had patted Steve's arm with one hand and his moustache with the other.

“ Look Howard, if it had just been me going out, I would have agreed to being your lab mammal in future peril, no more than a few questions asked.” He ignored Howard’s indignant look at the ‘few questions' part. “Your stuff usually works, and works well. But this is official SSR recon, and even if it’s not a currently active war zone, Agent Carter will be accompanying the Commandos as well so-“

“Aah, I see. You don’t want to be all thumbs in front of her, eh ? Don’t want to risk looking silly not knowing how to handle your equipment in front of the pretty and pretty competent Agent Carter.” Howard had grinned slyly.  
Steve suppresses the urge to whack Stark up the head for that bit of innuendo. Howard threw an arm around Steve’s shoulder and began steering him out of the room. “Well you’ve told me your concerns,”  
“Oh I have a list,” Steve grumbled, only for Howard to flap a hand airily and continue on, “so let me assuage them and assure you why this would be a spectacular idea.”  
“Firstly,” he stuck up a finger, ”this could help the other troops a lot, if the field test is successful. They'll be able to operate from much further out than they currently are, front lines themselves can be pulled back closer to the main attacking force, less chances of capture and active engagement, we can win battles while sitting back in our knickers at HQ, yadda yadda, good of mankind, blah blah blah.”  
He stopped , turned and faced Steve, both hands gripping his shoulders.  
“That’s if it does work as planned. If it doesn’t though, you’re the only Super Soldier around I trust to be able to deal with the fall out. And make it back in one piece to come and give me feedback on what went wrong !”  
“I’m the only super soldier around.” Steve had pointed out dryly.  
“Yes we’ve already covered that Steven, keep up !”  
Steve had sighed. It was a low stakes mission after all. Nothing more than scouting out the purported site for a Hydra camp in the next few days, just checking if a new source was reliable.  
“Also, ladies love a man who can push buttons just right, or loosen them or just plain pop them open-“  
“Howard,” Steve had cut him off firmly, “this may be coming from a guy who didn’t know what fondue was until a few months ago, but at least I don’t mix up what a robot would consider a good time with what a dame would.” And with that he picked up Howard’s miracle machine and marched out the room.  
It's a few hours of sleep and then he's shaking Bucky awake to leave.  
“Look sharp and no unnecessary detours, Captain. Warnings of heavy snow in the next 30 hours.” Phillips had told him, eyes turned up to the steely winter sky half in concern, and knowing Phillips, half out of a desire to yell the weather into behaving.

****

Too many blisters and one blizzard later, he’s kicking himself for ever listening to Howard and agreeing to field test the damn thing.  
It had worked alright.  
Too well, infact.  
They had picked up radio chatter, broken the encryption, Peggy’s job made that much easier with the built-in decryption key the instrument boasted and had gone to investigate further. Except, the signal appeared to originate not from the location they were supposed to have been scouting, but from ten klicks further out, even though they had set the range on the instrument to pick up broadcasts only from where the regiment should have been.  
  
Peggy closed her eyes, rubbing her temples slowly. “I don’t suppose Howard enclosed an instruction manual for this thing did he ?”

Steve gulped.  
  
“Maybe they moved ? Spur of the moment kinda deal ?“ Dugan had volunteered at the time, looking doubtful. Nobody said it, but it lingered unspoken- Go back to base, figure this out with normal equipment? But it also meant risking losing track of the regiment and setting off a whole chain reaction of subsequent information loss. So, intel being intel, they trekked the uncomfortable distance over inches of snow and frosted grass, and thanking their stars, found the campsite. Which was Hydra alright, but something was off. The chatter wasn’t anything in line with what they’d been anticipating. After acquiring whatever they could, they’d begun the long, exhausting trek back to base. Until Howard’s infernal device had squawked and begun transmitting another signal.  
And this time, after decryption, the content was exactly what they’d been expecting to encounter at the first site.  
Dernier had opened the instrument after they ducked off the road and into a cluster of trees. He’d tapped the side of it, looking over the mess of wires.  
“The temperature dropping must’ve affected the range function of it. Now it picks up signal from a range further than what had been set.” Gabe translated.  
“So you’re telling me,” Falsworth had started, sounding massively aggravated, “That the intel we’ve gathered, after a seven hour hike with frozen grass stabbing me in places I’d rather not mention in polite company, is _not_ what we’d set out to gather at all ?”  
Peggy had sat down on a rock, and was massaging her sock clad feet with her boots kicked off beside her.  
“It’s not useless intel, if that’s what you’re getting at.” She’d said, sounding just as crisp as she used to first thing at reporting time for morning fall-in at Lehigh, despite clearly being just as tired as the rest of them. “But we need to complete this mission and scout out our designated location before we head back to base.” She finished decisively, lacing on her boots and dusting the snow off her pants as she’d stood up.  
“Well, Mom’s made it clear we gotta finish our homework before we can go out to play,” Bucky sighed. “What do you say Dad ?” he raised an eyebrow at Steve.  
The other Howlies looked expectantly at him.  
He looked nervously at Peggy.  
Peggy glared at Bucky and then glared at him.

Steve swore revenge on Bucky for not only questioning Peggy’s clear instructions, and her authority, but also and smashing the ball into his very reluctant court.  
It's covered under paint now, but Steve’s shield still bore the bullet marks from the last time he’d offended Peggy.

  
He had rank over her, sure, but only in name. Intelligence gathering was her area of expertise, and this was an intelligence gathering mission. However, the team had been on their feet since five in the morning, and the snow storm Phillips had warned him about seemed not too far off.

  
“Dernier, Gabe, how far out from the original location are we ?” he asked, carefully avoiding Peggy’s eye.

  
Gabe scanned the map.“About five klicks, give or take. There’s some small village on the way, we might have to go around it if it’s occupied by Axis forces.” Dernier nodded and spoke a quick stream of french. “Sounds about right,” said Gabe. "Frenchy has tweaked what he can of Stark’s machine, so the broadcast range that we’ve reset it to is within five kilometres.”

  
Bucky had crouched down and was reading the map over their shoulder. “It’s another 4 kilometres back to camp then, avoiding the village. Carter’s right, Steve.” There’s an icicle caught on his eyelash, and it keeps drawing Steve’s attention. So he sees it a split second before the snowball smashes into the side of Bucky’s face, toppling him into the snow on the ground. Amongst the sniggers of the Howlies, Bucky slowly picks himself and his jaw off the floor, looking like he lost a fight with a sack of flour. “Alright, I deserved that for the Mom thing,” he smiled wryly at Peggy. Who merely raised an eyebrow, looking angelic. Her hands were firmly behind her back.

  
They set off then, purpose quickening their strides. It was only one in the afternoon but the overcast sky made it seem much later.

  
***

The site was clear. Or at least appeared to be. With the snow coming down as hard as it was now, the wind blew the flakes into figures behind bushes that broke apart when they came closer, only to form a few feet further. Noises were muffled, and the scrubby meadowland didn’t offer much in the way of cover. It took them an hour to sweep the site, tension running through steve the whole time. He caught sight of Bucky, the way he kept his rifle unslung, ready to shoot at a moments’ notice. Something wasn’t right, and Bucky felt it too. But only when they regrouped near the edge of the clearing, did all hell break loose. Suddenly, a streak of blue shot across from the trees on the other side, hitting dernier in the arm. He fell with a cry, and they explode into action around him. Gabe dragged Dernier behind a tree, while the rest took cover of their own behind rocks. On the opposite end of the meadow, what they had taken to be a rock pile began to move with the whirr of gears and a camouflaged tank emerged to flatten the trees in front of it.  
“An ambush,” Peggy gritted out from beside him, where they knelt behind a boulder. “Probably want to capture us alive so they didn’t pick us off individually before.”

Bucky was behind a tree of his own, grimly scanning for the first shooter who had hit Dernier.  
_Oh God_ , Dernier. There's blood in the snow leading to where Gabe had got him propped up against his knee behind a huge oak. “He’s not doing too good. Looks deep,” he mouthed as he tried to staunch the bleeding with a scrap of his sleeve he'd torn off. Dernier was already a ghastly shade of grey.  
Bucky peered out from behind his tree and immediately ducked back down when a second later a chunk of bark and splinters exploded from where a beam hit. The scent of sap was sharp in Steve’s nose. Chancing a look of his own, something cold and steely gripped his insides when he saw a party of atleast fifty hydra uniforms, all equipped with the laser guns, and that damn tank nearly halfway across the clearing. Steve figured the only reason they were holding back and not charging them was because they had a reputation of taking down squads of men, like an Allied small scale blitzkrieg. Thing is, they planned those attacks knowing fully well when and where the main force was, and would take out the troops with well laid bombs and traps. Steve had seen those guns outright vaporize men at the receiving end of a direct hit. Dernier may have been conscious right now, but that was going to be a nasty injury if(when, he tells himself, when) they came out of this. It's the how that was evading him.  
“We got sold out. Bad source,” Steve said, teeth gritted. He can see the same conclusion in Peggy’s eyes, all fire and grim determination, panic pushed deep.  
“Get down!” Bucky yelled suddenly, and threw himself across the few feet of space between Steve and Peggy and him, tackling them both. The top of their rock is clean vaporized, where seconds ago their heads had been. The shot had come from behind them, Steve realized with a dull sort of horror.  
Bucky is already rolling, up on one knee to steady his rifle, and he fires.  
Something shiny, red and green flies out the end of the muzzle with a huge bang and puff of smoke, flies the twenty feet between them and the hydra sniper, to stick quivering in the bark of the tree near his head.  
The next second stretches for eternity, and Steve takes in every single detail in the immediate surrounding.  
Peggy is whipping out her pistol, an eleven sided icicle floats past Steve’s’ nose, Bucky is looking at his rifle in shock, the last rays of weak sun gutter out to no longer cast shadows on the snow, the Hydra sniper lowers his gun in bemusement to look at the brightly coloured projectile at eye level near his head, Steve’s shield glints as he hefts it back for the throw, and the Sniper howls as he falls out of the tree, clutching his eye from which now sprouts another of the red-and-green projectiles Bucky’s rifle was shooting instead of bullets. Crazily, he remembered the time they’d gone to the balloon shooting stall at Coney Island, and Bucky’s first shot with the rigged rifle hadn’t hit anything. Five minutes later they’d walked away with the biggest prize on display. Bucky never missed a second time.  
Peggy had turned back to the main force in the meadow, and with Dugan and Falsworth from their own spots was firing steadily at the squad of Hydra. They duck behind the tanks, returning fire with a mixture of laser and standard bullets. Jumping out from behind the rock, ignoring Peggy and Bucky’s twin yells, he barreled into the formation of soldiers at the front, leaping onto shoulders as he tried to get onto the tank. He could see the barrel of the long gun glow blue in preparation for a single shot that would blow them all to bits if it hit, and with a everything he had, Steve jumped off the last set of shoulders and brought the edge of the shield down on the end of the barrel as hard as he could, gravity, momentum and muscle working to bend the end of the barrel. He felt the impact all the way from the base of his skull through his spine, the burst of iron as blood filled his mouth when his teeth clamped shut against his tongue.  
The barrel gave way under the vibranium and the blue grew brighter, the end of the gun exploding above him as he pulled his shield over him and crouched tortoise-like beneath it, aching arms braced against the clunks and thuds of shrapnel against its surface.

When he stuck his head out, the bent barrel had peeled back in three parts like a gun in one of the cartoons. The back of the tank had been blown clean off, the remains of the insides on fire. Every soldier who had been in front of the tank had been knocked down either by the explosion or the following shrapnel, groans and yells echoing in the clearing. The few remaining men who hadn’t been incapacitated were running back towards the shelter of the trees on the other side of the clearing. Steve stood up and checked to see if Peggy and the guys were ok. The front of the their boulder and Bucky’s tree were blackened with soot. Dugan peered out from behind his rock.  
“ _Waahoo_ ! Nice one, Cap !” Gabe and Falsworth echo the sentiment, coming out from whatever they had taken cover behind. Gabe had managed to stop Jacques' bleeding by packing snow over the wound to constrict the blood vessels.

Steve’s eyes search for Peggy, for Bucky. He’s just the tiniest bit proud of himself. That small part of him that had been turned into a showman for the USO hadn’t been squashed down yet and wanted to see the reflection of this pride as relief in their eyes. Bucky had turned around, the moment bits of tank had stopped raining from the sky, scanning for more snipers or sneakaways from the main force. Peggy stood up from behind their rock, lips pale from adrenaline stretched in a huge smile, eyes crinkled. His heart does a funny little somersault.

And then it dropped, just as quickly as the smile off her face. Steve spun on his heel. The line of trees that had been flattened from the first advancement of the now destroyed tank was unchanged. It was the other trees falling that had caused her alarm. The handful of Hydra soldiers had reached the other side of the meadow.

And were now being given a hand up onto three of the advancing tanks that were mowing down the trees. They could only watch in horror as the tanks made their way slowly into the clearing. And why should they hurry up, thought Steve. It wasn't like the seven of them could face off against 3 tanks and the hundred and fifty or so men visible in front of the tanks. He couldn't see how many more soldiers were behind the protection of the armored vehicles.

Three things became clear to Steve, like sugar crystallizing in ray of light on a on a sunny afternoon. Crystal clear, like a bug caught in amber and trapped alive.

This was an invading force.  
It was heading to base camp, and it was coming in waves. The first tank had probably only been a scouting party. This was the true first wave. Whoever was the source had sold not only them, but the whole camp out. And they didn’t know how many more waves there were,

They were going to die.  
Hydra had stopped taking prisoners after the 107th had broken out with Steve at the helm. They’d figured prisoners would just bring the promise of another captain America guerrilla attack, and after the Azzano debacle, any captured soldier was executed. He hadn't seen it himself, but Peggy had told hm one day as she typed out the letter of condolence to a fallen soldier’s family. “Most prefer to shoot themselves, pull their own trigger rather than face their end at the muzzle of a Hydra gun.” She’d told him, hitting the keys harder than necessary. He’d pretended not to hear the sniffle that she’d timed to be hidden with the ding of the typewriter sliding back to the left.

Base camp was going to fall.  
They were the only ones who knew about this force, and they were going to die before they could alert Phillips. Bitter amusement coloured his thoughts. What would have happened if they’d not ended up following Howard’s instrument to the wrong camp. If they’d come here earlier, found it clear with no signals in the air and gone back to base to report it all good, source reliable.  
Now, he thought, they knew exactly what was going to happen, but were still powerless to stop it. Steve is suddenly fiercely grateful for the fact that Morita had got injured last mission and was on leave for R&R back in London.

  
“Gentlemen, it’s been an absolute pleasure.” The click of her gun. Peggy’s voice held steady where it came from behind him. The kind of steadiness that came with understanding the same three things that he had, and accepting them.

  
“Aw shit. Now I won’t get to murder Stark for what he’s gone and done to my rifle.” Bucky just sounded genuinely bummed out. Steve was seized by the maniacal urge to giggle.

  
But before anyone could say anything more on the matter, a curious sound builds. The wind picked up, howling through the trees now and buffeting them with snow and stinging sleet. It grew darker in seconds, plunging the world into twilight, but the noise just continued to build. Across the clearing, the incoming force had stopped. Men were breaking formation, confused at the sudden change in weather. Steve was still trying to figure out the noise, louder now, and more rhythmic. Familiar in a strange way, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it...

  
And then Lord James Montgomery Falsworth, who had grown up on an estate in the country said,”Is that... _horses_?”

  
And it clicked then, the rhythmic sound of hundreds of hoofbeats, galloping together, towards them.

  
No. Not towards _them_. Towards the Hydra army. And then waves upon waves of shadowy figures mounted on equally dark steeds burst through the trees midway through the meadow, from both sides, turning and charging straight towards Hydra. In amazement, Steve watched as the men fired their vaporizer lasers at the rows of shadowy riders, hardly visible in the thick flurries of snow that were gusting down now. Flashes of blue lit up the night, but not a single rider of horse seemed o fall. There were cries of confusion and then the men who had shuffled out of formation to an extent earlier when the snow storm had blown in now completely scattered. Strangely enough, even though the columns of riders were between Steve and the hydra force, he could make out the outlines of the Hydra men clearer than the horsemen.

  
But the soldiers still continued to fire, and Steve is only saved from being turned into a puddle of very confused goo by somebody yanking him down sharply. He glanced over to say thanks to Peggy or Bucky or whichever of the Howlies it had been, only to find himself to face to face with a young girl in the uniform of the French Resistance. There’s a flash of silver at her collar; a fleur de lis pendant swung out from her shirt on a delicate chain around her neck.

  
She said something to him in quick French, but all he could pick out is “Quick...wounded friend...can help you...run.” It's enough for the moment and he takes off running behind her as she swiftly made her way to where Gabe was trying to maneuver a now unconscious Jacques into a fireman’s throw over his shoulder, while juggling Howard’s darn machine. In the blink of an eye, the girl had bent down and hoisted Dernier onto her shoulder with no apparent effort, leaving Gabe to only scramble for the device and follow her. Peggy shot Steve a look, but her outline was rapidly growing hazier in the gusts of ice that buffeted them and now was no time for misgivings about strange youngs girls who appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the woods in a snowstorm, on the tail of a shadowy cavalry and could lift up a full grown man like a kitten.

  
As the six of them struggled against the wind behind her, Peggy caught up to him and shouted “The closest settlement was 3 klicks away on the map. I don’t think we can make it in this storm !” her voice was tossed away by the wind.

  
And yet, although they had been struggling against the wind through knee high snow for what felt like hours, it had only been fifteen minutes according to his watch. And then out of nowhere, the wind dropped, halted by the looming outline of a single storied structure. No sooner did it come into view, than a quickly widening slit of warm golden light spilled out onto the snow, cutting into the blue-gray darkness . Steve was the last in through the door, and found himself and the others standing in a warm, fire-lit parlor.

  
The girl was carefully laying Dernier down on a low couch and all of them stepped forward to do something, anything to help, but she held up a hand for them to stay back.

“The beam from the gun should have cauterized the wound,” said Peggy. ”He shouldn't have been bleeding this much in the first place.” Naked worry tainted her voice. They had seen injuries from the Hydra guns before. In case of flesh wounds, almost everyone survived, if with a nasty scar, because like Peggy had said, they were cauterized immediately so reduced risk of bleeding out. Painful as hell, going by the stories, but not life threatening.

Except this seemed to be a new kind of injury, from a new modification of thw standard weapon. In moment, the girl had drawn an ornate looking knife from her its sheath on her belt, definitely non-regulation, and had deftly slit Dernier's sleeve for a clearer look at the wound.

  
It wasn't encouraging. Still bleeding sluggishly, Steve could clearly see the layers of charred skin and adipose tissue all the way down to the muscle layer of his deltoid. It was about four inches across and gaped more than a half inch at its widest in the center.

  
Peggy was already moving for the medic kit that was in Gabe’s pack. Morita was their usual medic, but in his absence, Gabe was the one that patched them up on the field except Gabe seemed too stunned to do much. He’s snapped out of his inactivity by Peggy tugging this bag off his shoulders though and they get out the sewing kit , cotton and tincture iodine. The girl left her post kneeling by Dernier’s side momentarily to fetch a pot from presumably the kitchen to boil the needle in. Peggy had already started disinfecting the incision with tincture iodine. But her hands were shaking too much for her to use the needle.

The girl laid a hand on her shoulder, and said something softly. In the soft light from the fireplace, Steve could see her clearly for the first time. Pleasant face, strong jaw, hazel eyes and brown hair. Nothing about her stood out on first glance. Nothing that made her particularly memorable other than her obvious youth. But on second glance, she looked older, experienced like she had seen combat and it had toughened her, ageing her features from within.  
Steve’s french although not great, should have been enough to understand whatever she could have said in the given circumstances. Yet he couldn’t make out a word. Peggy and Gabe were both fluent, and yet, they too seemed to be struggling to understand.  
Finally, Gabe shrugged. “Closest I can figure is, she says can help him. Although she put it like, she could heal him. I guess she’s volunteering to put the stitches in.”

Peggy looked at her carefully. She addressed the girl, one quick sentence.The girl smiled a little sheepishly and shrugged, replied back in her undecipherable French. Soemthing in her reply made Peggy finally move aside for the girl to kneel down again and take off her gloves. The backs of her hands were covered entirely in old burn scars, white and pink, twisted. He wondered what sort of misfortune had befallen her when she was younger. Slowly, methodically, working up layer by layer of flesh she began putting in the stitches.

Now, under most circumstances, Steve wouldn’t have trusted somebody like her as far as he could throw her. The whole affair was suspicious. And yet, somewhere deep down, he felt safe in her presence and it had nothing to do with the fact that she had singlehandedly led them through a frankly unholy blizzard to this little haven.

"I'll go scope out the rest of the place." Bucky murmured and then promptly dragged Falsworth and Dugan along with him, leaving Gabe, Peggy and Steve in the front room with Jacques and the girl.

The girl worked and they watched her in silence, until a short while later there was the unmistakable bang of Bucky's malfunctioning rifle, distant cussing and chortles.

"I'd better go see to that,” Steve said hastily, leaving Gabe to look tired and Peggy muttering, " _Children_ ," under her breath.

The house wasn't as big as it had seemed earlier. It also clearly hadn't been inhabited for a while, going by the layer of dust on all surfaces. Two bedrooms, a kitchen and the front room. He found the others in the 2nd bedroom, where Dugan was inspecting what looked like mistletoe that stuck out from the ceiling and Bucky was scowling at his gun.  
He launched into an explanation before Steve could even ask.  
" _Upgrades_ , he said. _A service to mankind. You'll have Cap's six , be doing him a big favor,_ he said."  
Steve could feel a headache coming on that no amount of serum could dispel.  
"And he decided that modifying your rifle to shoot foil Holly and mistletoe would be a good idea."  
Falsworth snorted. "It's honestly your fault for even giving it to him with Stark spouting schmuff like that."  
Bucky looked like he was about to argue, but then slumped into silence. "I'm going to see if I can find some hot grub." He slouched off, looking defeated.  
"I think you hurt his feelings," Dugan said conversationally.  
"Not as much as my feet hurt," Falsworth groaned, falling into the bed.  
"Why don't you guys take a nap, I'll keep an eye on things.” Steve told them.  
"'S why we call ya Captain, Captain," Dugan said, tipping his hat to Steve, busy already crawling under the dusty sheets.

  
He could hear Bucky banging around in the kitchen, looking for food that wasn't hard tack and spam. When he got to the front room, the fire was burning low, and the girl was no where to be seen.

"She said something about having to rendezvous with another member of the Resistance. Didn't mention when she'd be back though." Peggy told him quietly, joints popping as she got to her feet. Gabe was already snoozing in an armchair, boots still on.  
Steve nodded. "I'll keep watch. If you want to sleep, there's another bedroom."  
Peggy swayed slightly on her feet and shivered."I doubt that's going to be necessary. Nobody's going to be out and about in weather as fine as this," she nodded to the window, which was fogged up from inside and probably frozen shut with the inches of packed snow immediately outside it.  
"Didn't she just go out though?" Steve blinked.  
Peggy looked out the window which was blurred with condensation. "She said something about using the coal cellars. Some kind of interconnected underground system with the next big house. Her dialect of french was very unusual," Peggy chewed her lip. "I've never heard it before but I think it's a much older dialect of french. Maybe its spoken only in these parts of rural France. Jacques would have known." she sighed.  
Her mouth thinned. "There's something about her that I just can't put my finger on, but I don't think she's who she says she is."  
At the look on his face, Peggy hurriedly added, "I don't think she means us _harm_ , or she certainly wouldn't have lead us here, but still..." she trailed off.  
Shaking herself out of it, Peggy added that she'd radioed a message to Phillips, warning him about the invading force. "Although I highly doubt they'll be moving anywhere in this storm."  
_And neither will we,_ Steve thought. It wasn't exactly comforting.  
"Well, I'm off to make myself useful," she said and trudged out of the room.

 

 

 


End file.
